Brooklyn: Epilogue
by Lauren Raquel
Summary: Basically an epilogue for the **movie** Brooklyn. Possibly involves children (wink, wink). Enjoy! Also, I'm a beginner, so go easy on me.


I can't believe it's 1957 already. The time has flown.

Tony and I are really, truly happy. And the children are, too. Rose is 4 now. She has Tony's straight dark hair and my blue eyes; it's a striking combination. And she's such a beauty, even for four years old. She's smart too. She notices more things than any other toddler I've ever known. She's bubbly and happy and everything we could ever wish for. When Tony comes home from work, her eyes light up the moment he walks in, and she runs to him, yelling "Daddy!", leaping into his arms like a koala lunging onto its mother. She wraps her tiny arms around his neck and her skinny legs around his waist, and squeezes so tight that sometimes he loses his breath. But he doesn't mind. Rose is a daddy's girl and I think she always will be.

She once asked where she got her name, and I told her the story of her beautiful aunt who played golf and walked from work with a brisk step. I explained to her that aunty Rose is in a better place now, with angels and flowers and everything beautiful.

Georgie was born in August. He looks much like his father, but with my nose. He was only 4 pounds. I was frightened out of my mind, and Tony even more so. Georgie had to be in the newborn intensive care unit for the first 5 days, and I remember one night I woke up needing a drink of water. The newborn unit was in the hall directly across from my room, so I could see it from where I was laying. And there, crouching next to our sleeping son, was Tony. Just watching. Making sure he was okay. I checked the time and I remember it being around 1 AM. I woke up again at 4, and he was still there.

After 2 weeks, Georgie was healthy enough to take home. I remember that day. He cried in the car and didn't stop until we arrived home. He ate very often and slept very often. The first night, after getting him to sleep at about 9:00, Tony and I were both devastatingly tired and fell onto our bed, which was in the same room as Georgie's crib. I was asleep in an instant, and I assumed Tony did the same, until I woke up for no apparent reason in the middle of the night. And there he was, sitting on the floor next to our baby. He was so scared Georgie would stop breathing. So much that he'd lose full nights of sleep for it.

Georgie is now an astonishing pudgy 6 month old, he can say "mama", and (get this) "doh-gahs". We plan to take him to his first game when he turns one.

But there was a baby before Georgie.

And Rose.

Shortly after Tony and I were married, I became pregnant. When I told Tony for the first time, I remember he just stood there in remote shock for a moment, but then the greatest smile spread across his face, and he hugged and kissed me a thousand times, whispering "I love you's" in between.

Pregnancy was rough. Tony had to hold my hair back on countless nights as I threw up. I had horrible back pains, and I couldn't sleep. I thought it would never end.

When I was 20 weeks along, about five months, there was one night where I was laying down in bed, and I had this horrible feeling something was wrong. But I didn't know what it was. So I brushed it off and attempted to sleep. When I was drifting off, I felt this sudden sharp pain in my abdomen, it was worse than I had ever felt before. It felt like someone had shoved a hundred hot knives into my low back and a hundred more into my stomach. I screamed in agony, and Tony shot up and asked what was wrong. But I couldn't speak, the pain was too great.

Tony turned the lamp on, and at that point I realized there was a damp spot underneath me. I looked down, and the sheets were stained bright red. I then began to feel lightheaded. Tony grabbed the telephone and called 911 and asked for an ambulance. I can't recall what he said, for I was too dizzy to concentrate, but I remember his voice shaking on the phone with the operator.

By the time the ambulance arrived, the pain was unbearable, and I was drifting in and out of consciousness. I only recollect being lifted a stretcher and Tony's terrified face hovering over mine.

When I awoke, I was in a hospital room and the only sound was the heater running and the footsteps of nurses in the hall. I glanced over and I saw Tony sitting in the chair beside my bed. When he saw I had awoken, he stood up next to me. I looked into his eyes and the only thing I could manage to say was, "...Our baby?". And when he looked at me with tears forming in his eyes, he didn't have to say a word. I knew. I just knew.

I was in the hospital for five more days of recovery, and for those days, I didn't say anything. I stared at nothing for hours. I didn't eat. It was the longest five days of my life.

On the car ride back home, I didn't speak to Tony. I looked straight ahead at the road. I felt nothing. I watched car by car pass by us and each traffic light turn yellow, red, green, yellow again.

That night, I managed to stomach a few small bites of dinner and a glass of water. Tony didn't try to make me talk. I reckon he understood. My tiredness was still present, so after eating I stood and walked slowly to the bedroom with poor posture. I sat upright on the bed and began reading the novel left on my nightstand. But I wasn't really reading. It was just words, going in and out of my mind, with no meaning. No purpose. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tony come through the doorway and sit beside me, not saying a word. I continued to read the book for few more minutes, not comprehending anything in it, but at some point I stopped in the middle of a paragraph. My hands started to shake. The book fell from my hands. Tears flooded my eyes. It all came down on me at that moment.

Our baby was dead.

Up until then I had been numb, I had not felt the reality of what had happened. I had pushed it away and tried to feel nothing instead.

Our baby was gone.

I collapsed into Tony's chest. I felt his arms go around me. He was crying, too. I buried my face into him and my body shook violently with sobs. The hurt I felt then was ten times greater than the stabbing pains I felt in my stomach a week before.

We cried together until we both fell asleep, enveloped in each other. And in the morning, I knew it was going to be okay.

Then we had Rose. The pregnancy was even worse then. I threw up until I had nothing left inside me and then again. I feared losing another baby so much. But when she kicked for the very first time, I was so happy I was brought to tears. Tony placed his hand on my swelling stomach and felt it. He smiled and said, "we're going to have a baby, Eilis."

And we did. At nine months I rushed to the hospital with contractions and was dilated at a 7. The birth was so painful I almost blacked out, but Tony held my hand and told me everything was going to be alright. When I pushed for the final time, I heard the most beautiful sound I had ever witnessed. It was the cry of our daughter. I couldn't help but weep tears of joy. Holding her for the first time, she was so beautiful. I could see my blue eyes and her father's dark brown hair sprouting from her fragile head. She was everything I ever wanted.

I'd like to say I miss home, I really would, but Brooklyn is where I belong now. We live in the house on Long Island that Tony's family built. It's just grand, just grand.

I used to think home is a certain place, a town, or a country, but I now know what home truly is. Home is where you feel safe from harm. Home is knowing you are accepted and loved. Home is Tony. When he pushes the hair away from my face and wraps me in his strong arms and kisses the top of my head ever so slightly, that is home. Home is Georgie snuggling into my chest. Home is watching Rose drift off in Tony's lap as he reads her favorite book to her.

Home is my family.


End file.
